The Puffer Forum

I'm treating my puff for ich and I've been doing 80% water changes every other day (in addition to salt + Ich Attack).

I have another aquarium that's been neglected since I started treating my puff, and I need to do a water change on it tonight.

I only have the one gravel siphon and set of buckets. Is it safe to use the same gravel siphon and buckets to do the water change in the healthy aquarium? Or will I risk spreading ich to my healthy tank?

I have no idea how long ich survives being out of water.

Thanks!

I vote for rinsing out everything in a bleach/water solution and rinsing again VERY thoroughly. You can never be too careful, especially about little pockets of water that could get stuck inside the siphon.

Thanks for the super quick answer. If I bleach the stuff, what should the bleach concentration be (i.e. like one part bleach to 10 parts water)?

1 part bleach 9 parts water I believe is the recommended amount. Then rinse VERY well, and let air dry for a while.

yea 1 part to 10 is fine go with that and rinse very well

or 1 in 9 either or just rinse rinse rinse

have you raised temp to speed up ich life cycle?

Hi Bertie, the water temperature is already always at 82-84 degrees.

Higher!

Bring your temp up to about 86 degrees, add an airstone, eliminate the Ich attack, daily 50% water changes with superb substrate vacuuming, and keep with the salt. What kind of puffer is this? If brackish, start bringing up the SG with marine salt and that will help a lot.

As for the equipment, 1:10 bleach to water and then rinse with water. Make sure the water contains a heavy side dose of dechlorinator like Prime or Amquel.

While it is fully valid that higher temperatures are harder on the Ich parasites, I never set an arbitrary temperature level, so long as it is at or over 80F.

Many heavily infested fish cannot withstand 86F as the have insufficient gill function left, even if the water is fully saturated for O2. If respiration is too rapid and labored and the fish cannot swim around without exhaustion. I had rather take longer at 80F than to suffocate the fish.

That is a judgement call. If the fish can handle 86 without distress, great, use it. If the fish cannot swim or move without exhaustion, you may be killing it with kindness.

I usually set the temp 80° - 82°, I've still lost some fish to ich over the years, but they were heavily infested and/or very young. I did once use a higher temp, 84° or so, and the fish died within a day. I don't know if it was just too far gone to begin with, but since then I don't set the temp above 80° so if the lights heat up the water during the day it won't exceed 82°.

I read that odessa barbs like cooler temps, so I did not raise the temp very much when I treated them for ich. They were physically/visually clear of ich in about a week, and they all survived. I know they were only mildly infested, so that may have been part, but it didn't take exceptionally long to treat them and their water at that time was 78° - 80° F

About 80F is apparently the cutoff temp. That and above is upsetting to the parasite's development, and the higher the better in the sense of killing the parasite the higher the tem, the greater the damage to the parasite.

Unfortunately, killing the fish does not count a a cure.

Nope, sure doesn't.